by Sharon Green
When that day came she would need more than tears to help, but she already knew she’d never get it…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Rion stood by the window in his room, staring out at the pretty little garden. And it was a little garden, at least by the standards he’d been raised by. Nothing but the best, Mother would always say, for me and for my lovely boy. Don’t worry, darling, I’ll always be there to make certain you get nothing else.
Remembering how pleased he’d been to hear that, Rion could have cried. Back then he’d had no idea he was being cursed rather than blessed, chained rather than freed. Mother had always made a point of keeping her deliberately given word, and in that nothing had changed. There’d been a letter waiting for him when he’d returned to his room after lunch, written in her secretary’s flowing, familiar script.
“My darling boy,” the letter had begun, just as though he were still ten years old. “I knew allowing you to come to Gan Garee without me would end badly, and so it has. Those trollops living in that so-called residence with you have obviously taken advantage of your sweet-natured innocence, but I refuse to abandon you in your hour of need. I’ve demanded an audience with the Blending, and this time I won’t allow them to sway me. One way or another I’ll soon have you out of there, and back with me where you belong.”
“As far as other things go, I must tell you frankly that I’m deeply disappointed. I sent word to Gan Garee ahead of you, to Dom Hoclan, my business manager. He arranged to have men keep watch over you, to protect you in case of trouble, and to discover what bad influences you might be exposed to. He was also supposed to keep you from those bad influences, but mistook my intention and merely had his men keep watch. When I received his report this morning, I immediately took to my bed.”
“My darling, how could you betray me so by indulging in the rutting practiced by animals and peasants? I realize you certainly had no idea how filthy and disgusting the thing you were made to do really was, but surely you should have known that what has my approval you have already been permitted to indulge in? That this very obvious truth failed to stop you I attribute to your being in the company of those nauseating peasants, and as soon as I have your word that it will never happen again, we’ll speak no more of it.”
“In the interim, I ordered Dom Hoclan to have the sickening female who desecrated you arrested by the guard and thrown out of the city. As soon as she’s found your honor will be avenged, and no one need ever know. The pain in my heart will remain, of course, but once you’ve returned to me and enough years have passed, the pain will surely do the same.”
“Be brave, my love, it won’t be long, you have my word on that. Until then, I remain, your adoring mother.”
His adoring mother. Rion shuddered at that phrase as it rang over and over in his head. She’d decided to have Naran Whist arrested and thrown out of the city so Rion’s honor would be avenged, and that without knowing how much he burned to see the girl again. If she ever found out, Naran’s life would be worth less than a copper, and all because she’d generously turned a sheltered boy into a man. The boy’s mother didn’t want him to become a man, and all her considerable power and influence would be bent toward returning him to his place under her thumb.
A wave of illness made Rion close his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them once more he was able to see Tamrissa and Ro again. The two had been walking in the garden since before Rion had come to the window, and something told him they had used a private part of the garden to share a kiss. He had very little experience in judging the matter, but he still had that definite feeling. And, just a few moments ago, he’d seen Jovvi hurrying to the bath house in a wrap. Ordinarily that would have meant nothing, but Coll had gone into the bath house a short while before her, and now the “occupied” sign hung very conspicuously on the door.
Rion turned away from the window, frustration and anger rising dangerously within him. His mother’s minions would interfere with the woman he most wanted to associate with, and the only two other females he found the least interest in had refused his company before accepting that of other men. Was he so pitiful, then, that no decent relationship with a woman was possible for him? Was he doomed to be nothing more than “mother’s darling boy” for the rest of his days? He couldn’t bear that thought, he simply couldn’t, it was so damnably unfair!
Anger turned so quickly to fury and rage that Rion would have been shocked if he hadn’t been so deeply caught up. Instead he snarled and lashed out with a fist as he’d been taught to do in his exercises. The motion was intended for the releasing of tension and pressures, a deliberate spending of excess energy that might otherwise overwhelm him. He lashed out with his other fist even as he took another step—and the blow landed on something soft and yielding which was also invisible.
For a brief moment Rion was startled, but then his wildly lunging thoughts found the answer. The exercise set he’d learned to form from solidified air as a boy; his mind had realized he needed it very badly now, and had formed the set without his being aware of it. Another blow in the same place showed Rion that the set really was there, so he began to use it as it was meant to be used.
Pummeling the wide cushion until his breath came in gasps was the first step, and then he moved to the left, where the knobby pole was positioned. Grabbing the invisible pole and strangling and shaking it was immensely satisfying, and brought him to the point of being able to move to the right, again beyond the cushion. Separate sections of solidified air lay there, and he took one in each fist and began to raise and lower them. Their weight had been increased rather dramatically, so lifting them over and over was no easy thing.
After the weights came the ladder, which he climbed up and down so many times that his leg muscles cringed at the thought of continuing on. His arms already felt that way, so he was finally able to leave the set and go to collapse on his bed. The fury and rage had been completely burned out of him, leaving his mind free to try rational thought again. But the anger wasn’t gone, far from it, and likely would never be gone again. Unless and until he found a way out of the madness his mother was determined to drag him back into.
Rage tried to surface again, but this time it was easily brought under control. Rage accomplished nothing but destruction, and only constructive thought had a chance of freeing him. Rion understood that, but where was he supposed to begin? With an answering letter to Mother, telling her he now knew the truth? She claimed to love him above all other things in life, but actually it was herself she loved. Keeping him a pitiful child had been for her benefit, certainly not for his.
The thought of writing a letter like that brought a faint smile to Rion’s lips, but he knew how useless the effort would be. After reading it Mother would take to her bed in a “faint,” and when she arose again she would be even more determined to reclaim him. It would be the “bad influences” which had caused him to reject her great and selfless love, and she would give her word again to save him from the evil and return him to her side.
But that was something which would never happen. Rion had lost himself to rage because of the fear that she might succeed in regaining possession of him, not realizing just how impossible she would find that. He would sooner live on the street, in filth and squalor and begging coppers, than go back to the nightmare of his previous life. That firm decision freed him more surely than all the letters and protests in the universe, sending his previous fear to a place from which it could never return.
“Sorry, Mother, but your darling baby has finally begun to grow up,” Rion murmured, his smile now a good deal more serene. “And if I find Naran before your people do, she’ll be just as safe from you. Yes, she isn’t at the tavern any longer, so I should have a chance to do just that. But I’d better remember about those people watching me…”
For the first time since he got his mother’s letter, Rion was grateful she’d sent it. He added a silent thank-you to what he’d just said, then began to make serious plans.
And tried not to remember what Jovvi and Tamrissa so obviously thought of him…
* * *
Vallant finally went back to his room to get ready for dinner, keeping himself from whistling only with the greatest of efforts. He’d spent all afternoon walking in the garden with Tamrissa, and she’d even agreed they might do the same again this evening. She might decide against it at the last moment, but not because she was uninterested in him. She was just so shy where men were concerned, when she wasn’t telling them off, that is…
He laughed lightly as he closed the door behind himself, feeling as if he walked on air. She was just as interested in him as he was in her, he knew it more surely than he’d ever known anything in his life. In his old life, that was. If he had to lose that, he seemed to have gained what would turn out to be incredibly more.
Giving in to the urge to whistle a few notes, Vallant started across his room to the bed, intending to lie down for a short while. He certainly had the time, and he certainly had what to daydream about. He grinned as he walked, intending to take full advantage of the daydreaming, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, he ran into something that tripped him. He fell forward, expecting to sprawl full length on the floor, but it didn’t happen. He sprawled on something soft and springy instead, a good three feet off the floor.
Vallant blinked as he looked down at the carpeting he hadn’t fallen onto, trying to figure out what was going on. He lay on something invisible, but it wasn’t meant to harm him or it would have done so already. So what could it possibly—
“Of course!” he said aloud with a laugh, absolutely delighted. “It’s an invisible cloud, supplied to let me float as much as I like.”
The idea was perfect, and Vallant knew he’d have to thank Mardimil for it. His cloud had to be made of solidified air, and there was only one practitioner of Air magic in the house. Mardimil must have seen him and decided to do a bit of gentle teasing, but that was perfectly all right. Vallant didn’t mind being teased like this, not when it fit his mood so perfectly.
He turned over and stretched out, finding the cloud to be even more comfortable than his bed would have been. It was something he would have loved to show to and share with Tamrissa just as he wanted to share everything with her. For the daughter of one wealthy merchant and the widow of another, she’d had so very little in her life.
“But that applies only to pleasure,” he muttered, a darkness descending over his happiness. “When it comes to pain she’s had enough for ten people, but her father still isn’t satisfied. He’ll use her to get what he wants until she’s all used up—unless somebody stops him. Somebody like me, for instance, who’ll never let her be hurt again.”
Vallant made that promise out loud once more, but this time for himself rather than for Tamrissa. He’d never met a woman he felt so complete with, and the more he spoke to her the more certain of it he became. It was as though she’d been given to him in compensation for having lost his family, but he had to remember she hadn’t really been given. He’d have to work harder to win her than he’d ever worked in his life, because she still couldn’t quite trust men.
He sighed then, remembering how she’d tried to wish her beauty away. She felt it had brought her nothing but grief, and she honestly believed that being plain or downright ugly would have saved her from what she’d gone through. It was possible she was right so Vallant hadn’t argued, but something told him she was mistaken at least in part. What lay inside her, what made her the woman she was, was every bit as attractive as her face and body. Vallant felt the pull of her essence, and suspected a good number of other men would and did feel the same. That man Hallasser, for instance…
Vallant felt every trace of humanity leave him at thought of the man Tamrissa’s father was now trying to give her to. According to Jovvi, Hallasser would be worse than Tamrissa’s first husband, but that would happen only if he got his hands on her. If it ever actually came down to that, Vallant knew he would unhesitatingly pull every drop of water out of the man’s body. Hallasser would die a shriveled dust-corpse, and Vallant would spend not an instant in regret. And then it would be Tamrissa’s father’s turn…
Thoughts of that sort were usually accompanied by rage, but the matter was too important for rage. Vallant lay very still on the cloud, wearing a faint smile at the cold calm inside him, grimly satisfied with his thoughts. No matter what the cost, he would protect the woman he had begun to fall so deeply in love with. The woman he wanted so badly to make love to, but that would have to wait. She wasn’t yet ready to accept him in that way, and he was prepared to wait as long as necessary until she was.
But in the meanwhile he could daydream, which he did until it was time to go down to dinner. To see her again, and be near her again…
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
By the time I reached my room, I was almost sorry I’d insisted on leaving Vallant for a while. Being with him had been wonderful, so unexpectedly filled with … fun. I still found it hard to believe that such a thing was possible, to enjoy being in the company of a man. Even the boys I’d known at school had been more hungry than humorous, more intent on conquest than on comfortable exchange. But Vallant was so marvelous, so unique…
I just about danced inside my sitting room, closed the door to the hall, then did dance around a little. I’d never before felt the way I did right now, and the experience was pure delight. It made me want to dance, and sing, and fly—!
I stopped short in the middle of the room when I banged into something, but couldn’t see what the something might have been. That part of the room was empty of everything but carpeting, but I hadn’t imagined brushing against something. So I put out a hand and felt around, and sure enough a moment of groping at last put my fingers on the thing.
Whatever it was. I blinked over the fact that it was invisible, then used two hands to explore its dimensions. Again it took a moment to make sense of what I felt, and then I was more confused than ever. Unless I was mistaken, the thing felt like a swing, the kind of net garden swing I’d used only once as a child, at the house of one of my father’s business associates. The associate’s children were allowed to use the swing any time they pleased, but my sisters and I weren’t permitted any activity which might damage us or leave a scar…
At first I tried to imagine how an invisible swing could have gotten into my sitting room, but then the answer became obvious. Rion had supplied it by solidifying air, and it didn’t matter whether he’d done it on his own or Vallant had asked him to do it. I now had what fit my mood perfectly, and no one was there to say I couldn’t use it.
I moved around carefully until I was able to lower myself into the swing, muffling giggles over the thought of a net swing without any netting. But the thing was comfortable and felt really solid, so I held to its sides and began to swing. Pushing against the floor with my feet let me swing for quite a number of minutes before I had to push again, so I was able to let my mind drift off into pleasant memories.
Like the way Vallant had told me about his family, not to brag but to share the idea of what a real family was like. His mother had an odd sense of humor and enjoyed occasionally teasing her sons, which usually made them laugh. His father was a big man with a very strict sense of honor but he’d always shared that sense with his sons rather than imposing it on them. They all loved each other very much and I was finally able to understand why Vallant hadn’t wanted to be parted from them.
I’d told him very little about me in comparison, but he hadn’t pressed for details he seemed to know I didn’t care to discuss. Instead he’d called me Tamakins, insisting that the awful nickname suited me perfectly. I’d tried to retaliate with Valsi-Walsi, but the sound of that had been so ridiculous I hadn’t been able to say it without laughing. At first he’d pretended to cringe at the name, but it wasn’t long before he couldn’t keep from laughing either.
And then, not long before we’d come in, he’d put a finger under my chin to raise my face, and then he’d kissed m
e. It had been such a gentle kiss, and such a short one, but my lips still tingled with the feel of it. I’d expected him to ask for more, dreading what would happen when I was forced to refuse, but he never did. He simply kissed me gently for a moment too quickly over, and then we’d resumed strolling. With my hand held firmly to his arm, just as he’d insisted…
I thought about all that for a timeless time, then stopped thinking and just let the sensation of pleasant memories wash over me. Things had been fairly pleasant when I was a small child, but since then there’d been nothing to compare with what was really a simple walk in a garden. And I’d agreed to think about doing it again, later, after dinner. In the dark rather than the light, with paper lanterns brightening only certain portions of the path…
I expected the idea of that to make me blush, but all it did was cause me to laugh and swing higher. Everyone kept insisting that associations between men and women were supposed to be pleasant, and I suddenly found myself ready to investigate the claim personally. Or almost ready. There were still so many ugly memories that needed more burying first…
I swung long and high, but after a while I remembered that I was supposed to be getting ready for dinner. I could have stayed in the skirt and blouse if I’d wanted to, the way most of the men had stayed in their uniform trousers and shirts. But instead I found myself leaving the swing and hurrying to my wardrobe, to pull out the best dress I had. I wanted to look really marvelous for Vallant, to make him glad he’d asked me to walk with him again. I could see his platinum hair and pale-blue-eyed handsomeness clearly in my mind’s eye, and couldn’t wait until I saw them again right in front of me.
The dress of melon silk trimmed with lots of white lace took a short while to get into, and that after washing some in the basin. Once dressed I ran the brush through my hair quickly, then hurried out of the suite. I was certain I would be very late, and only hoped Vallant hadn’t decided to wait for me before going in himself. Walking in late is bad enough; walking in late with a man beside me… I’d probably never live long enough to stop blushing.